


Eggshell Finish

by saltslimes



Series: Guide to Paint Finishes [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Hazing, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, kaciart got in my head again, yeah what did you think it was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltslimes/pseuds/saltslimes
Summary: Slightly glossy, washable, good for high traffic areas.





	Eggshell Finish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaciart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaciart/gifts).



> Yet another work more _with_ [Kaci](http://kaciart.tumblr.com/) than for her. She came up with the absolutely evil scenario and I came up with the weird similes.

Prompto’s aware that his fellow trainees don’t like him. He’s  _ been _ aware. Generally people who like you don’t piss in your shoes or stuff garbage in your locker. But it’s… he sort of thought there was a limit to the hatred. Yeah, he’s a nif, yeah, he’s shit at hand-to-hand and he can barely use a heavy weapon to save his life. And no one seems… pleased that he’s actually  _ good _ at sharpshooting, but Noctis is so proud and Gladio and Ignis seem sort of jointly relieved.

“G-guys?” he calls. There are a few echoes of laughter. The sound rings off the tiles and the close ceiling. Prompto feels vaguely sick. Mostly he feels like he has places to be? Cor is waiting for him. When someone says “Meet me in my office Argentum,” they generally mean pronto, and not after you take an hour-long shower in your crown-issue boxers.

It’s midwinter. They just got the pipes un-frozen. The showers barely run warm, but this is something else. It hurt when he got in, and then it sort of burned and now it hurts again. He really wants to sit down but every time he lists towards the wall someone yells. Absently, he’s aware that at least two people are filming him on their phones.

He’s stopped shivering at least.

“This hurts, okay?” he manages to get out. There's laughter, and some quick argument he doesn’t catch.

“Seriously? You’ve been in there less than an hour. Harrow did seventy-five minutes.”

“If you actually want to be a crownsguard you can’t just give up when you decide you don’t like something.”

And yeah. They’ve pretty much got him there. What hasn’t he given up on? Gave up on having friends, gave up on making his parents proud, gave up on good grades and gods-damned heavy weapons.

So yeah, he’s not going to give up or give in. Whatever. Seventy-five minutes. And he’ll be late, and Cor will… destroy him or something. But it barely hurts anymore, and wow, he wants to sit down so badly. And then he actually does, and there’s a shout from the doorway, but that’s miles off, and he’s deep underwater. Sound is warped like he’s hearing it through a tin can, and his eyes drag shut and then there’s a heavy thud and the water shuts off.

He’s thinking slowly, reeeally slowly, but he’s thinking that he can’t breathe. 

xXx

Gladio has zero flaws and certainly not any he’s going to admit, but if someone were to describe him as impatient he might have a tough time arguing with them. It’s something he tries to hide as much as possible around Noctis, because they occasionally have it in common. And something he  _ really _ hides around Prompto, because he can’t even wait for the machine at the arcade to dispense his coins.

So when Cor’s eyes follow him as he paces the length of the office again, he forces himself down into a seat and puts his hands in his lap. Be still. That’s an order, he tells himself.

And then, exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds later, he stands up so fast the chair knocks back a little.

“At this point, we might as well just go get him.”

“Who’s on rotation today?” Cor asks, not looking up from the paperwork he’d been steadily working on.

“I dunno, Lavernus? I think? Does he usually keep them late?”

“Not that I know of. But we could go see.” Cor caps his pen and stands up, and Gladio suppresses the urge to fist-pump the air. Thank the gods, because spending another minute in Cor’s boring office would literally be torture. The one day he forgets his book, of course.

There are a few trainees milling around in the hall, which suggests they haven’t been kept late. And sure enough, there’s no one in the practice room. Gladio ducks back into the hall.

“Hey, where is everyone?”

“Locker rooms I think,” the trainee says, torn between keeping his eyes glued on his phone and staring at Cor the Literal Immortal (as Prompto claims he’s usually called when he isn’t around).

“Well, they’re goofing off probably,” Gladio says. Cor shrugs. His expression has a kind of not-on-my-watch quality to it, so they head downstairs to the locker rooms. Sure enough, they hear laughter before they get around the corner.

“Son of a--” Gladio mumbles. It’s such a  _ Noct _ thing to do, and he and Prompto only seem to take on each other’s most annoying qualities. But he tries to take on a more neutral expression, if only because Cor is there.

And then they get into the locker room.

It’s obvious that  _ something _ is going on--there are about ten guys standing on the far side of the room, by the entrance to the showers. A few of them have their phones out. One of them seems to be arguing with the others.

“Hey! We didn’t say you could sit!” one calls, even as someone is tugging at his shirt.

“Dude, don’t you think--”

“This is interesting,” Cor says, and all sound actually seems to suck out of the room. One of the guys actually just dives for the door. All the phones go away immediately. And it takes--for some reason it takes Gladio a minute to process even though it shouldn’t, he’s been doing this long enough, he knows what it looks like, he knows exactly who they’d pick to haze.

But the crowd kind of parts as trainees stumble out of the way and one or two rush up to Cor to try to explain, and he can see blond hair soaked with water, and a limp body slumped under the spray.

He jumps in and slams the water off hard enough there’s actually a slight crunch from the mechanism, but that’s not what matters.

“Yeah, out, all of you. Now,” Cor is saying, and Gladio reaches down for Prom, whose eyelids are fluttering slightly, but he’s barely moving, and he’s not even shivering.

“Prom? Hey, bud, can you hear me?” He drops down and envelops Prom in his arms, and  _ shit _ he’s cold. It feels like touching a steak out of the freezer.

“Gl’dio?” Prompto slurs. Cor is there then, handing Gladio a towel, and then he ducks out, phone in hand. It almost hurts to touch Prompto, but Gladio holds him close and tries to feel his breathing, his heartbeat. The former is slow. The latter is hard to get a read on. 

Fortunately, Cor comes back before he can start properly freaking out, because shit, in all the time he’s known Prompto, it hasn’t occurred to him how small he is? The kid seems to be 90% bones. It feels like he’s holding a baby bird he found in the snow, and it’s making his heart do its best attempt to crawl up his throat.

Prompto has started shivering, which almost seems worse, because it’s much more disturbing. But Cor wraps a blanket around both of them.

“Med techs coming. They said ETA of five minutes,” Cor says. Gladio just nods.

“Ahh,” Prompto says softly.

“Hey, bud? You with us?”

“Ow.”

“Yeah?” Gladio looks up to Cor desperately, feeling like a kid standing in front of a knocked over vase.

“You probably got the worst case of pins-and-needles of your life incoming,” Cor says, and rocks back on his heels.

“Is it f’ne?” Prompto says, squinting from the bundle of blankets Gladio has him in.

“Yeah, you’re fine, you’re going to be okay,” Gladio says, pulling him a little closer. But Prompto squirms, shaking his head.

“No, the...test. The training.”

“What test?” Cor says. But Prompto is shivering hard now, and whimpering slightly, and he doesn’t answer. The med techs arrive and take him out of Gladio’s arms, which is simultaneously a huge relief and sort of horrifying.

They clear him to go home after only half an hour or so of warming him up, but he seems reluctant.

“I uh. I was going to walk home. I left my bus pass at school,” he says. They’re sitting alone, side by side on the couch in Cor’s office. Cor is in the hall making a phone call. Prompto almost refused to give up the names--up until Cor and Gladio pointed out that people like that should hardly be trusted with Noct’s safety.

And speaking of the royal annoyance, in any other situation Gladio would call him and Specs would arrive to collect Prompto within minutes, looking smug and annoyed at once the way only he could. But Noctis is tied up with diplomatic matters at the moment, and Ignis along with him.

He means to just offer Prompto a ride. He keeps his hands steady on the wheel and Prompto slumps against the passenger-seat window.

“You can’t have thought they were serious.”

“Yeah, I’m not stupid, actually,” Prompto says. He’s still shivering a little, drowning in Gladio’s hoodie. He sighed, running a hand over his forehead. “My brain was messed up when you guys found me.”

“If you knew, why did you--”

“Because I don’t know. I thought maybe I could prove something. It was stupid.”

“You bet your ass it was stupid.” Gladio pulls to a stop at a red light. The sun is already starting to set, sinking low between the skyscrapers. “Did you text your parents? Let them know where you are?”

“What, no? Why would I?” Prompto looks at Gladio in genuine bewilderment. Gladio blinks.

“Because… they’re your parents and they’re probably worried.”

“Oh. Nah, they won’t be home for another three weeks.” Prompto says this like it’s nothing. Like it’s a known fact, a normal, boring fact. Gladio’s hands tighten on the wheel.

“So what. I drive you home and you’re going to make dinner for yourself, eat it alone, go to bed.”

“I was sort of just planning on doing that last one.”

“Haha. Okay.” He pulled a u-turn.

“What the fuck?” Prompto cried.

“Change of plans. You’re coming to my place.”

“W-why?”

“Because I have soup there. And you have… no sense of self preservation. And we have to talk about that.”

That got a laugh. A weak laugh. A shaky laugh. But still a laugh. Gladio let his hands relax on the wheel again. He straightened his posture. And then he reached over and ruffled Prom’s chocobo-yellow mop of hair. And that got an ever better laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Original doc title: julie got me agane that demon  
> This was Beta'd by the lovely [Gnine](http://gnine2.tumblr.com/), but she only saw most of it so if the end is fucky that's all on me.


End file.
